


He Knows

by mldrgrl



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family Feels, Romance, Trust No 1, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25116709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mldrgrl/pseuds/mldrgrl
Summary: Written originally to fulfill a story request about Mulder's beard and William...I failed to delivery on the actual request, and went another way.  A post-episode AU for Trust No 1
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 32
Kudos: 120





	He Knows

It’s late when she picks her son up from her mother’s house. She should leave him there, let him spend the night in the pack ‘n play undisturbed, but she can’t be away from him right now. Not when she was so close to seeing his father again and had the opportunity slip away. She needs to hold him, smell the top of his fuzzy little head and remind herself that she still has a piece of Mulder with her.

William falls back to sleep in the car as Monica drives them back home. Scully nearly falls asleep herself. She’s been running on hope and adrenaline for days and with a failed reunion as the end result, exhaustion has taken over.

“Do you want me to come up with you?” Monica asks.

Scully shakes her head. “No,” she answers. “I appreciate it, but I just need…”

Monica nods in understanding. They say no more. Scully gets out of the car and opens the back to unlock William’s carrier. The baby flinches slightly when the door is closed, rolls his eyes open, but doesn’t really wake. Monica waits until Scully is inside the building to pull away.

The carrier is heavy in Scully’s arms and weighs her down. She trudges into the foyer of her building and trudges up the single flight of stairs. She’s starting to tremble and she wills herself to wait until she’s inside to fall apart. Wait until she has William down so he doesn’t see her. As soon as she opens the door, she sets the carrier down inside so she can drop her keys and shed her coat, but she doesn’t make it that far. 

“Don’t turn on the light,” a soft voice to her right murmurs.

She freezes. “Mulder?” she whispers. Her eyes dart through the dark room, searching.

“I’m here.”

“Oh my God.” 

He’s a dark figure coming slowly towards her, all shimmers and shadows. She shuts her eyes, squeezes them tight, and then opens them again to see if it’s only wishful thinking playing a cruel trick.

“Scully,” he breathes.

“Mulder,” she answers.

His hands are on her face and his mouth is on hers and it’s all real and not a dream. He feels differently to her, thinner than he used to be, and the whiskers of a full beard tickle her chin and cheeks. She whimpers and folds her arms tightly around the back of his neck, lifting onto her toes to get as close as possible. He takes his hands off her face to wrap his arms around her, squeeze her tight, and she breaks from their kiss to hide her sudden tears in the crook of his neck. She clings to him and he holds her, rocking her from side to side until William squawks lightly in his carrier, reminding her that she’s not the only one that’s been waiting for this reunion.

Mulder releases Scully with a nervous chuckle. She wipes her wet cheeks and bends to pick up the carrier, shushing the baby quietly as she takes him into the bedroom. Mulder follows. He turns the blinds as she sets the carrier on the bed and then switches the bedside lamp on low. 

William blinks and squirms. Mulder blinks and stares. Scully shifts her eyes between the two of them and unhooks the baby from the carrier. “Guess who’s here,” she murmurs, her lips against the soft shell of William’s ear. She finally gets a good look at Mulder as she stands cheek to cheek with their son. He’s wearing a rumpled sweatsuit and looks as tired as she feels, but relieved as well, like he’s dropped a heavy burden he’s been carrying. She’s taken back to the moment nine months ago when she first placed the baby in his arms and she comes closer.

“He may not want me to...” Mulder says, taking a step back, but he opens his arms anyway. He’s eager, she can tell, but nervous.

“Go see Daddy,” she whispers, passing William to his father.

The emotion of the moment is written on Mulder’s face. He’s the happiest Scully has ever seen him, taking his son into his arms, perhaps even more in awe than the first time he held him. William looks up at Mulder with a pensive expression, the tuft of his left eyebrow lifting in skepticism he could only have inherited from his mother. 

Mulder lifts William a little higher in his arms and looks at him all over like he’s trying to memorize everything about him. “I’ve tried to imagine what he looked like,” he says. “What he...just, everything about him.”

“He’s got six teeth now,” Scully answers. “Pears are his favorite food. We usually read The Very Hungry Caterpillar before bed. He sleeps through the night.”

“Nice to know one of us does.”

Scully chuckles softly. “He babbles a lot to himself, but hasn’t said his first word yet.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t have anything to say quite yet,” Mulder says. “You’ll talk when you’re ready, won’t you?”

In response, William reaches up to grab hold of the whiskers on Mulder’s cheek, taking a fistful with a strong grip. Mulder winces, but laughs, taking William’s hand in his and bringing it to his mouth to kiss his chubby little fist.

“I know, I know,” Mulder says. “I look a little different from when we last saw each other.”

William drops his head suddenly and rests it on Mulder’s shoulder. Mulder splays his hand out against William’s back and bends to kiss the top of his head. Tears gather in Scully’s eyes again and she brushes them away. Mulder glances at her and opens one arm to her to invite her in. She steps into his embrace and feels him sigh as she rests her cheek against his chest. She watches William grow sleepy again and struggle to keep his eyes open. He rubs his face against Mulder’s shoulder, giving a frustrated snuffle as he fights off sleep.

“I should put him down,” Scully says. 

“Do we have to?” Mulder asks.

Scully lifts her head and looks up to see the longing in Mulder’s eyes. Her heart stutters in her chest. She moves to the bed, clears the carrier off, and turns the comforter down. “Come,” she says.

As Mulder sits down, Scully kneels. She unlaces his tennis shoes and slips them off before he swings his legs up onto the bed and slides back against the pillows, cradling William against his shoulder all the while. She quickly removes her jacket and steps out of her own shoes before she lies down beside him.

William is slack against Mulder’s chest, his face tipped up and mouth open near his father’s neck. Mulder cups the back of the baby’s head gently as he adjusts to a more comfortable position and then closes his eyes.

“I was so afraid I’d never see you again,” Scully whispers. “I thought I’d lost my only chance tonight. To have you back...I’ve missed you so much.”

Mulder swallows and tips his head back further. He doesn’t open his eyes, but tightens his jaw. She touches his face, strokes the scratchy and unfamiliar whiskers at his chin. He pulls away, kisses William’s head and then tries to pass the baby over to Scully.

“What’re you doing?” she asks, sitting up, refusing to take the baby.

“I told myself it would just be for a minute. Just to see you and William, to know you’re alright, but it was a mistake.”

“What’re you talking about?” She pushes into his shoulder, holding him down against the pillows as she looms over him. 

His eyes are bloodshot and watery. “I’m putting you in danger.”

She shakes her head. “You’re wrong,” she says. “The danger is in not being together.”

“What do you want me to do, Dana? Tell me what you want because I’m tired of running and I’m tired of hiding, but I will disappear forever if it means you’re safe. If William is safe.”

“If you think I’m letting you walk out of here alone you’re insane.”

William jerks at the intensity in Scully’s voice. He whimpers and turns his head back and forth on Mulder’s shoulder. Mulder shushes him quietly and runs a soothing hand down his back.

“Whatever we do from now on, we do it together,” she says, emphatically, but quietly, so she doesn’t disturb the baby. “If you go, we’re coming with you.”

“Absolutely not. Scully, you don’t know what you’re saying. Hiding. Looking over your shoulder all the time. That’s not the kind of life our son deserves.”

“I know that he deserves to know his father.” She stops, her voice suddenly thick with emotion and throat closing almost painfully. She swallows it down. “I deserve...Mulder, we deserve…after everything we’ve been through...we deserve to finally, finally be together.”

“You don’t know how badly I want that.”

“I don’t want to do this alone,” she whispers. “I don’t know if I can.”

Mulder turns his eyes to hers, instantly recognizing his former plea to her in the hallway of his apartment many years ago. “If we quit now, they win,” he responds.

“Let them. Let them win. We have already lost so much, Mulder. But, this...” She lays her hand over Mulder’s on William’s back. “You told me once that there was so much more out there than the x-files. This is it, Mulder. This is the something else. We could walk away and have this.”

“It would be…”

“It would be worth walking away for.”

He nods slightly and that pacifies Scully for now. She lays down beside him again and puts her arm around him. Mulder reaches over and snaps the lamp off. The weight of his son on his chest is both familiar and foreign, but it feels right in the same way that Scully beside him as always felt. 

Mulder sleeps heavily and wakes alone. He can hear quiet noises in the kitchen and the low murmur of Scully’s voice. He’s awash in sorrow, knowing it was wrong of him to come here, knowing he has to leave and what it will do to them. His heart is breaking just thinking about it. If it were possible to sneak out somehow, he just might consider it, but he’s afraid Scully would never forgive him for taking the coward’s way out.

Heavy and mournful, Mulder gets out of bed and shuffles into the kitchen. He smells coffee. William is at the head of the table in his high chair stuffing what looks like Cheerios and banana into his mouth. Scully is buttering toast at the counter and she looks over her shoulder at him.

“Hey,” Mulder says.

Scully smiles and it makes his chest hurt. “Good morning,” she says. “Coffee?”

“Sure.” Mulder sits down in the empty chair to the right of William. William offers him a Cheerio, which he pretends to eat. William giggles and kicks his foot.

Scully sets a mug of coffee in front of Mulder and puts her hand lightly on William’s head as she moves to sit down across from Mulder. Mulder sips his coffee. Scully takes dainty bits of toast and sips orange juice. William chases Cheerios around the tray of his high chair with his index finger and then pokes at a slice of banana, smashing it to a pulp before closing his fist around it and pushing it into his mouth. The clock in the kitchen ticks ominously.

“You kept the fish,” Mulder says, nodding at the fish tank at the tank by the wall.

“William likes them.”

“Um, about last night,” Mulder says, lowering his eyes to his coffee mug. “What you said. I think-”

“Dada,” William says suddenly, pointing to Mulder.

Scully looks startled. Mulder is also taken aback, his mouth opening, but he’s unable to form words.

“Did he just…” Scully says.

“Dada,” William says again. He merrily kicks his foot against his high chair and shoves another fistful of mashed banana into his mouth. He stares at Mulder with an intensity Mulder has never felt come from a baby before.

Mulder is drawn closer, leaning in to stare into William’s crystal blue gaze. There’s something about the look in his son’s eyes that feels all-knowing and purposeful. And there’s a sudden vision projected in his mind of a whole life ahead of him; chasing a laughing toddler down a narrow hall to get him in the bathtub, playing catch as twilight sets in, birthday parties, family movie nights on the couch with bowls of popcorn between them, building sandcastles on the beach, launching home-made rockets into space. A feeling of pure joy floods through him.

But then, suddenly, he also sees a parallel vision that starts with him walking out of Scully’s apartment alone. There’s Scully crying, William growing up with a different name and different parents, confused and angry, Mulder and Scully suppressed by darkness and pain. So much darkness and pain. It takes Mulder’s breath away for a moment and he blinks, falling back in the chair, sweating.

“Mulder?” Scully asks.

“I uh…” He blinks again, leans closer to the baby, but William’s gaze is innocent. And yet, there’s something there. Something that tells Mulder this child knows more than all of them.

“Dada,” William says, reaching his sticky, banana-coated fingers out and gripping the whiskers on Mulder’s cheek.

“Oof.” Mulder winces and pries William’s fingers loose.

“Unbelievable,” Scully says. “I’ve tried getting him to say ‘Mama’ for weeks, and then you show up and...he’s just suddenly a Chatty Cathy. Can you say ‘Mama,’ William? Mama?”

“Dada,” William answers, holding a soggy Cheerio out to Scully. She grimaces and shakes her head.

“What were you going to say about last night?” Scully asks.

William stares at Mulder with that cool, all-knowing gaze again and though it can’t be possible, Mulder can feel his son willing him to heed the warning he was just given. Trust me, his son’s eyes are saying. Trust me, Daddy.

“Uh, I just wanted to tell you that...you were right. If we go, we go together.”

Scully nods and Mulder gets to his feet, stroking his sticky cheek. William smiles and pokes at his Cheerios.

“First thing’s first though,” Mulder says. “I need a shave.”

The End


End file.
